I've always felt that the Japanese and Korean manufacturers were gouging consumers and price-fixing by keeping high resolution computer monitors off the US market. In South Korea you can pickup 27 and 30" IPS monitors for half or a third of what they are going for here in the United States. LG which makes most of the IPS panels won't even sell you a high res IPS monitor if you're in the US.

How is this possible that the inventor of IPS does not make any for the US market? Does that make any sense? You have to buy LG panel based monitors from OEMs like Dell, HP,Apple etc.. and only at prices which have not come down for the past ten years or so. The available resolutions have not gone up either even though in the markets where there is competition such as mobile phones and tablets, panel resolutions have increased four-fold and prices have fallen significantly.

In parts of Asia (like China), there are many affordable 4K televisions and monitors for sale while the US press keeps on suggesting that 4K monitors should and do cost a lot to manufacture (when they don't). This has made 4K TVs a curiosity here in the US.

But finally this is beginning to change with competition from China with the arrival at tigerdirect.com of a very cheap (but badly configured - no DisplayPort inputs) 50" 4K TV from China for under $1,300. This compares to Sony's 4K 50" TV at $5,000 and Samsung's 84" model at $30,000.

I would have jumped on this new cheap 4K TV but it lacks any display port inputs and can only be driven by HDMI 1.4 ports at 30hz rather than computer friendly DP & 60hz. This is a dead-end configuration unfortunately.

I've been looking for a high resolution computer monitor and TV for a while now and I hope this Chinese entrant into the non-competitive 4K US market may mean that we will finally start seeing affordable 4K computer monitors as well as TVs.

So far the only 4K monitor I'm aware of is the Sharp 32.5" IGZO model but that is not sold in the US and supposedly goes for close to $6,000 in Japan (another price-fixing rip off)

Is anyone interested in 4K monitors for their computers?

The way I see it why should I spend $1,200 for an almost 2xHD 27" or 30" monitor when I can enjoy 4xHD at 8megapixels for around the same price in the next few months. If the Chinese can build an entire 4K TV and sell it for $1,300 right now then they can probably build a 30" 4K monitor for less.

runamuck wrote:
Don't look at me. I'm still watching a 30 inch CRT in the living room. I plan to keep it til one of us dies.
Oh you Luddite. I have have one of those super large 32 inch CRTs that I inherited from my father inlaw. Lovely oak case, but would take four football players to move. I don't think it will last as long as my '91 Toyota, the sound is already a bit iffy.

With 4K TV pixels 3840×2160 your going to face the same problem the beautiful 22.2" IBM high resolution display had. The IBM T221 display was a 204DPI resolution display with 3840x2400 pixels a stunning 9.2 Mpixel display. However it requires a special video adapter or two or more video adapters to drive all of those pixels. This is why the largest number of pixels you will see offered on non medical display is 2560x1600 pixels. The sad part is they all are massive 30" monsters with only a 100dpi resolution. I would much prefer a 20" version with a 151 DPI resolution.

The IBM t221 started out in the year 2001 at $20,000 cost which was reduced to $8,000 then closed out from TigerDirect for $3,000....